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Science: The Knowledge Race, Not the Arms Race | Zach Hodgdon | TEDxDePereMiddleSchool


[Applause]
some amazing things with humanity
his cure diseases made our lives better
and even taken us to the moon yet so
many people disregard how much these
achievements matter or use them to
develop weapons of war shouldn’t we be
helping humanity not destroying it if we
put more effort towards scientific
advancement we could change all of our
lives save millions of people and push
humanity forward into the future when
President John F Kennedy challenged the
United States skills alone she wasn’t
just challenging a nation he was
challenging the world to push out into
space in advance giving time he did not
just want us to beat the Soviets to the
moon he wanted to begin a new age and
scientific advancement once we had gone
to the moon the thousands of engineering
became coming up with new ideas of what
to do next their new rockets streamed up
that could wore facade and five space
stations of artificial gravity and even
plans to go to and possibly colonize
Mars and other planets in our solar
system unfortunately only about one of
these concepts for missions ever came
about have you heard of the Space
Shuttle in the International Space
Station the fact this was only one part
of a much larger plan designed to take
us to Mars but sadly it never happened
due to budget cuts going to Mars would
give us so much information about the
solar system as well as help us with
taking care of the earth it would unlock
so much information that we could use to
help the human race if you can’t tell
already I’m pretty in love with space
and even that may be an understatement
well most young kids want to be an
astronaut at some time or another I want
to be the person building the rockets to
get them into space I have been to Space
Camp twice and planning to go again and
in fact I basically decided I want to be
an astronaut
when I grow up and I’m only 14 at Space
Camp in Huntsville Alabama there is a
satified they have we can walk right up
to it just an amazing sight when you
look at this in person it just reminds
you of all the technology all the effort
put into it to get us to go to the moon
it’s so unbelievable that we were able
to do this but almost 50 years later
people are still questioning it and
saying it never happened yet it did and
you think if you think about it the most
powerful computer at the time was over a
thousand times less powerful than a
common smartphone today the technology
then was so much less than what we have
now but we’re not doing anything like
that right now you’re seriously limiting
our potential for greatness even though
we were born here I truly believe that
mankind was never meant to die even
though someday there will be some kind
of extinction event that will just
eliminate everything on earth and
probably none of us will be around to
see it still it will happen at some
point now we can accept that human race
will die or we can make sure that
doesn’t happen if we go into the stars
and leave the cradle letters on earth we
can make sure the mankind lives on
forever us this generation can make sure
that human the rate the human race does
continue on and lives forever there’s a
common phrase that we are the masters of
our own fates we need to be the Masters
of all of our dates mankind’s fate human
races and not dying one of the many
reasons that we went alone was to beat
the Soviets Russians in the space race
and win the Cold War all the
technological achievements developed
during that time were all done so the US
could win in an arms race against Russia
all throughout history the only time I
ever made large leaps and science or
technology is in times of war never have
I really said hey let’s spend all of our
effort and resources on finding new
science and
improving the human race no it’s always
been about the military and what they
could do
now of course public safety is the
government’s primary concern but we
really need to be spending fifty four
percent
or six hundred billion dollars a year of
our government’s budget on this higher
level instruments of destruction when we
could be building something instrumental
to the quality of life if we put all of
our effort and researching new sciences
and technologies we could have
incredible results there’d be so much
more information learning about how the
universe works and how to help earth in
ourselves survive there we could cure
cancer and other these diseases Vegas
live longer fix the environment and
world hunger colonize another planet
there are thousands of possibilities in
order for these to become reality we
have to focus on completing them but
most of our time and resources into
achieving them not spend most of it on
developing new missiles or fighter jets
we need to make peace with others set
aside our differences they come together
to help humanity we could change the
world medical advancements are often
slow processes that take many years to
develop or just incredibly hard to
create there just isn’t any way to find
these cures for diseases any faster than
we already are
and
eventually they will help millions of
people and save their life but right now
it just isn’t any way to save the
millions of people who have these
diseases today but this is a common
outlook on medical advancement I refuse
to believe it I believe that we could
create treatments for all sorts of
diseases if we had the money money is
almost always the deciding factor and
how fast something is developed yet
we’re not putting all the money we can
into it we’re not putting all of our
effort into it
if metaphor researchers had more money
they would be able to hire more
researchers more equipment lab space and
other things that would increase the
production rate of these treatments
remember the ice bucket challenge back
in 2014 they raised over a hundred and
fifteen million dollars of voting
treating ALS in just eight weeks the
money used from that helps researchers
find three new genes that caused ALS to
help them develop new therapies for
patients this is helping to save lives
and it’s just one example of our money
made all the difference if we put this
much effort for more into developing new
science new Medical Sciences we could
save hundreds of millions of lives
cancer research has not been getting as
much attention as this has or anywhere
close the amount of money but they have
been getting some money I’ve been
participating in a fundraiser called st.
Baldrick’s for the past three years as
you can see I’m still growing my hair
back as this is what it looked like
before I got it shaved this year this is
the very large fundraiser where the
participants get their head shape to
raise money for cancer and that’s after
I got my head shave
the main thing I don’t get about this is
while resorting to getting people’s head
shaved or dumping water on their heads
for raising money for medical research
no one is putting any research not many
people are putting a ton of money into
medical research that aren’t charities
for other foundations or that we could
have the cure for cancer in just a few
years if we put all of our effort into
it but we’re not I don’t think many
people understand how much money it
takes to develop these diseases or that
the money put into it actually matters
how much is discovered how many people
you want to see died until we have ways
to stop them from dying
my grandmother smoked for most of her
life because of action of getting
pancreatic cancer the doctors had almost
no way to treat that done and she ended
up dying in 2006 even now the survival
rate from pancreatic cancer is only 20%
at its highest and disease is considered
to be largely incurable I barely even
remember my grandmother and only have
pictures and stories for my parents to
remember her by there may have been
almost no chance for my grandmother but
we can give future of people a chance to
live from this and other diseases
it only took 115 million dollars to
create new treatments for ALS it may
seem like a lot of money but there are
hundreds of billions of dollars out
there that we could use to spend help
use these diseases we just have to try
more now others may not see the purpose
of scientific advancement over military
advancement but I certainly do as
Wernher von Braun once said science does
not have a moral dimension it is like a
knife if you give it to a surgeon or
murder each will use it differently I
want all of you to be the surgeon to go
and help the world we as a species could
achieve things that only been dreamed
about are you going to help with that
[Music]
[Applause]
you
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